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ISNTD Climate & Health
Climate change, tropical diseases and global health
3 November 2026
Online conference
#ISNTDClimate
#beatNTDs
Warming World, Moving Threats: Evidence and Action on Climate and Neglected Diseases
Tuesday 3 November 2026 | Online | Free to attend
Welcome to our fourth annual ISNTD Climate & Health conference scheduled for Nov 3rd 2026, taking a closer look at the linkages between climate, infectious diseases (with a focus on Neglected Tropical Diseases) and global health resilience. Presentations & panel discussions run across the day, covering the sessions and topics below. The event is free to attend. Please use the form on this page to book your place and receive the connection links. Thank you for your participation!
Climate change is now one of the defining threats to global health, and its burden falls hardest on those who are already most vulnerable. Some 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change, and climate-sensitive infectious diseases are spreading faster and further. In 2024, WHO received reports of more than 14.4 million dengue cases and over 11,200 deaths across all six regions, the highest global dengue burden ever recorded, with cases reported in more than 100 countries, both historically- and newly-endemic. Heat now kills more people than malaria or HIV, yet it receives nothing like the same funding or urgency. And an estimated 1.495 billion people still required interventions against Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2023, many of them in the communities most exposed to rising temperatures, floods, drought and rapid, often unplanned urbanisation.
The evidence is growing and progress is being made, but not fast enough. Research capacity remains deeply unequal: only around 1% of climate and health research funding reaches researchers in low-HDI countries. With COP32 in Addis Ababa on the horizon in 2027, now is the time to move beyond plans to implementation, accountability and change on the ground.
As the world braces for what is being called a Super El Niño, our annual conference delves into the evidence and trends in the links between climate and neglected diseases. It brings together researchers, implementers and partners committed to protecting those most at risk.
We look forward to welcoming you!
Programme
Sessions running 9.00-15.30 UTC
9.00-11.30 UTC | Climate and Health Action Lab: Preparing Health Systems for Diseases on the Move
9.00-10.00 UTC
Climate, Disease Transmission and Policy
How climate change affects mosquito-borne infectious disease: The different trajectories of malaria and dengue
Dr Toby Cumming (Health & Climate Initiative, Monash University)
Temporal variability and dynamic tracking of freshwater transmission sites to inform spatially explicit schistosomiasis models
Max Melchior Lang (University of Oxford Big Data Institute)
Dengue transmission heterogeneity across Indonesia’s archipelago: Climate-driven spatiotemporal patterns and policy implications
Dr Bimandra Djaafara (Senior Research Fellow, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore NUS)
10:00-11:30 UTC
From Projection to Preparedness: Mapping Vector-Borne Disease in a Warming World
Climate change and mosquito-borne disease in Europe: Aedes-transmitted infections and West Nile virus
Prof Jan Semenza (Lancet Countdown Europe; University of Umea; University of Heidelberg)
Projecting the future spread of yellow fever vectors and implications for epidemic risk: a scoping review of climate change and human behaviour
Dr Felipe Colón-González (Technology Lead, Wellcome Trust)
Climate-driven redistribution and future expansion of Hyalomma marginatum
Dr Seyma Celina (Virology Researcher, Center for Infectious Animal Diseases CINeZ, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague)
12:00-13:30 UTC
One Health: Parasites, Pathogens and Resistance on the Move
Novel environmental risk index reveals uneven impact of climate change on fascioliasis risk across Africa and Europe
Dr Tiem van der Deure (Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen) and and Dr Anna-Sofie Stensgaard (Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Section for Parasitology and Pathology, University of Copenhagen)
Food- and Waterborne Bacteria Transmission and Antimicrobial Resistance Under Climate Change: Evidence Gaps in Mainland Portugal
Dr Mariana Borges, Dr Angela Pista and Leonor Silveira (National Reference Laboratory for Gastrointestinal Infections, Department of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal)
Impact of climate change on the spread of fascioliasis into the extreme south of South America
Dr Pablo Cuervo (Department of Parasitology, University of Valencia and CIBER of Infectious Diseases, CIBERINFEC, ISCIII, Valencia, Spain)
Creating complete life histories of individual female tsetse (Glossina spp) to study the effects of meteorological conditions on fly size in Zimbabwe
Prof John Hargrove (South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis SACEMA, Stellenbosch University)
13.30-14.00 UTC
The Climate & Health Collective: discussion forum on what is needed to accelerate climate & health integration?
Join to share your thoughts, questions or insights in this open and collegial forum at the intersection of climate & health for a collective brainstorm and discussion - all welcome from every discipline and at every experience level!
14.00-15.30 UTC
Floods, Heat and Altitude: Emerging Threats and Lessons from the Americas
Climate Change and Dermatologic Diseases in the Global South: A Rising Challenge
Prof Jaime David Acosta España (3i, MMHealth / School of Medicine, UCE)
Local thermal anomalies and the altitudinal rise of dengue hospitalisation rates in Ecuador, 2011-2024
Dr Jaime Angamarca-Iguago (Center for Evidence Ecosystems, Implementation Science, and Decision-Making CIDES), Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica Ecuador)
Extreme hydrological events shape temporal dynamics of schistosomiasis in the Amazon
Prof Diego Simeone (Afya Bragança Faculty of Medical Sciences, Pará, Brazil)
Climate-sensitive infectious diseases in the context of climate change: Lessons from Brazil's floods, with leptospirosis as an example
Dr Matheus Negri Boschiero (Universidade São Francisco, Brazil)
Previously at ISNTD Climate & Health
Browse the full collection of ISNTD Climate & Health presentations and panel discussions from 2022 on the ISNTD YouTube channel: Climate & Health playlist
The International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases
